1824 Mar 9, Leland Stanford
(d.1863), railroad builder and founder of Stanford University, was
born in what was then Watervliet, New York (later the town of
Colonie).
(HN,
3/9/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford)

1847 Mar 9, US forces under
General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico (Mexican-American War) 3 miles
south of Vera Cruz. Encountering almost no resistance from the
Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the
last of Scott's 10,000 men came ashore without the loss of a single
life. It was the largest amphibious landing in U.S. history until WW
II. [see Mar 7]
(MC, 3/9/02)

1861 Mar 9, First hostile act
of the Civil War occurred when Star of the West fires on Sumter,
S.C.
(HN, 3/9/98)

1862 Mar 9, The ironclads, CSS
Virginia, (formerly Merrimac) of the South, battled the USS Monitor,
designed by John Ericsson, in their first battle for five hours to a
draw at Hampton Roads, Va. The story is told by James Tertius deKay
in his 1998 book “Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War
Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History."
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Par p.16)(AP, 3/9/98)(HN, 3/9/98)

1863 Mar 9, U.S. Grant was
appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
(HN, 3/9/98)

1864 Mar 9, President Abraham
Lincoln officially commissioned Ulysses S. Grant the first
lieutenant general in the U.S. Army since George Washington. After
leading Union victories in the West in 1862-63, Lincoln gave Grant
supreme command of the Union forces with the revived rank of
lieutenant general.
(HNQ, 3/13/99)

1897 Mar 9, Premiere of (parts
of) Gustav Mahler's 3rd Symphony in Berlin.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1897 Mar 9, Jamal al-Din
al-Afghani (b.1838), itinerant Islamic activist and British
intelligence agent, died in Istanbul. He is considered as one of the
founders of Islamic modernism and an advocate of pan-Islamic unity.
(Econ, 7/28/12,
p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal-al-Din_al-Afghani)

1915 Mar 9, The Germans took
Grodno on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 3/9/98)

1916 Mar 9, Pancho Villa led
1,500 horsemen in a night raid on Columbus, New Mexico. 18 US
soldiers and citizens were killed as the town was looted and burned.
President Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering General John J.
"Black Jack" Pershing to "pursue and disperse" the bandits. Wilson
called out 158,664 National Guard members to deal with the
situation.
(HN, 3/9/99)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)(AP, 3/9/07)
1916 Mar 9, Germany declared
war on Portugal.
(HN, 3/9/98)

1932 Mar 9, Eamon De Valera was
elected Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland and pledged to
abolished all loyalty to the British Crown.
(HN, 3/9/98)(http://www.clarelibrary.ie/)
1932 Mar 9, Former Chinese
emperor Henry Pu-Yi was installed as head of Manchuria.
(MC, 3/9/02)

1933 Mar 9, The Emergency
Banking Relief Act of 1933 was signed into law by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. The Act's primary function was to prohibit the
hoarding of gold coins, and did so by authorizing the United States
Treasury to request all people and companies of the US to send in
their gold reserves.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act)
1933 Mar 9, Congress, called
into special session by President Roosevelt, began its 100 days of
enacting New Deal legislation.
(AP, 3/9/98)

1941 Mar 9, Italians launched a
large-scale counterattack across the center of the front against
Greece, which, despite the superiority of the Italian armed forces,
failed. After one week and 12,000 casualties, Mussolini called off
the counterattack and left Albania 12 days later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Greece)

1950 Mar 9, Space Patrol
debuted as a local, 15-minute show that aired live five days a week
in Los Angeles and ran to 1955. Norman Jolley (d.2002), evil Agent
X, acted in the series and wrote scripts. Ed Kemmer (1921-2004)
played Commander Buzz Corry. Joanne Jordan played the evil Queen
Mirtha. It featured the voice of Dick Tufeld for its weekly
introductions. In 2005 Jean-Noel Bassior authored “Space Patrol:
Missions of Daring in the name of Early Television."
(SFC, 8/23/02, p.A27)(SFC, 11/17/04, p.B8)(SFC,
10/17/08, p.B8)(SFC, 9/25/09, p.D10)(SFC, 1/30/12, p.C4)
1950 Mar 9, Willie Sutton
robbed the NYC Manufacturers Bank of $64,000.
(www.astorialic.org/topics/timeline/1950.shtml)
1950 Mar 9, Timothy John Evans
(b.1924), a Welshman, was hanged in the United Kingdom for the
murder of his infant daughter at 10 Rillington Place in London. In
1961 Ludovic Kennedy, Scotland-born writer, authored “10 Rillington
Place," the story of Timothy Evans, who was hanged for a murder he
did not commit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Evans)

1953 Mar 9, U.S. vs. Reynolds
was a landmark ruling that formally established the government's
"state secrets" privilege, a privilege that has enabled federal
agencies to conceal conduct, withhold documents and block
troublesome civil litigation, including suits by whistle-blowers and
possible victims of discrimination. It provided a fundamental basis
for much of the Bush administration's response to the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, including the USA Patriot Act and the handling of
terrorist suspects. [See Oct 6, 1948]
(LAT, 4/18/04)
1953 Mar 9, Josef Stalin was
buried in Moscow.
(MC, 3/9/02)

1959 Mar 9, The Barbie doll was
unveiled at the American Toy Fair in New York City. The Barbie Doll
No. 1 was introduced by Mattel Toy Company for $3. Ruth Handler
(d.2002), co-founder of Mattel, had spotted the German Bild-Lilli
doll in 1956 and asked toy designer Jack Ryan (d.1991) to create a
version for American girls. The first dolls were produced by Mattel
Toy Co. in Hawthorne, Ca. In 1994 one sold for $4000 as a
collector’s item.
(WSJ, 12/9/94, p.R-8)(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A2)(SFC,
5/31/05, p.E1)(WSJ, 2/18/09, p.A15)
1959 Mar 9, The 1st known radar
contact was made with Venus.
(MC, 3/9/02)

1960 Mar 9, In Seattle, Wa.,
Clyde Shields (39), was implanted with the 1st kidney dialysis shunt
developed by Dr. Belding H. Scribner (d.2003) and engineer Wayne
Quinton. The process was 1st developed in the 1940s by Dr. Willem J.
Kolff, but had been restricted to operating rooms. Shields lived for
11 more years.
(SFC, 6/21/03, p.A17)
1960 Mar 9, San Francisco Mayor
George Christopher visited Moscow and accepted lavish gifts from
Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
(SSFC, 3/7/10, DB p.46)

1961 Mar 9, Supremes released
"I Want A Guy" & "Never Again."
(MC, 3/9/02)
1961
Mar 9, Korabl-Sputnik-4, also known as Sputnik 9, was launched with
a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one orbit mission. Also
onboard the spacecraft was a dummy cosmonaut, mice and a guinea pig.
(www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html)
1961 Mar 9, A mine cave-in in
Japan killed 72.
(MC, 3/9/02)

1964 Mar 9, The US Supreme
Court, in its New York Times v. Sullivan decision, ruled that public
officials who charged libel could not recover damages for defamatory
statements related to their official duties unless they proved
actual malice on the part of the news organization.
(AP, 3/9/04)
1964 Mar 9, A group of 5 Lakota
(Sioux) Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island in a peaceful
protest. They declared that it should be a Native American cultural
center and university.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.7)(G, Summer ‘97,
p.4)
1964 Mar 9, The first Ford
Mustang rolled off the Ford assembly line.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1964 Mar 9, The London
Fisheries Convention was signed in relation to fishing rights across
the coastal waters of Western Europe. The agreement was largely
superseded to the Common Fisheries Policy (the CFP) of 1970, as all
parties are members of the European Union.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_Convention)

1966 Mar 9, In Vietnam Bennie
Adkins (32) was among a handful of Americans working with troops of
the South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group at Camp A Shau
when the camp was attacked by a large North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
force. In 2014 Adkins was awarded the Medal of Honor for as many as
175 enemy troops killed, 18 wounds from enemy fire, 38 hours of
battle, 48 hours evading the North Vietnamese troops in the bush.
(http://tinyurl.com/myqsyue)(SFC, 9/16/14, p.A7)

1968 Mar 9, General William
Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/9/98)

1972 Mar 9, Edwin W. Edwards
began serving as governor of Louisiana and continued to Mar 10,
1980.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards)

1974 Mar 9, Officer Hiroo Onoda
(d.2014), the last Japanese soldier operating in the Philippines,
surrendered, 29 years after World War II ended. The Japanese
intelligence officer and WWII holdout, came out of hiding in
fatigues patched many times over, on Lubang island in the
Philippines on his 52nd birthday.
(www.einsteinsfrig.com/onoda/index.html)(AP,
1/17/14)
1974 Mar 9, Earl W. Sutherland
Jr. (b.1915), US pharmacologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in
Medicine (1971), died.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1971/sutherland-cv.html)

1976 Mar 9, A ski cable car,
running from Cavalese to the Alpe Cermis in the Italian Alps,
crashed to the ground due to a mechanical failure and killed 42
skiers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable-car_disaster_%281976%29)

1977 Mar 9, Pres. Carter
proposed an end to travel restrictions to Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea
and Cambodia effective as of March 18.
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=7139)
1977 Mar 9, Admiral Stansfield
Turner took office as head of the CIA under Pres. Carter.
(www.espionageinfo.com/Cou-De/DCI-Director-of-the-Central-Intelligence-Agency.html)
1977 Mar 9, About a dozen armed
Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington D.C., killing
one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two
days later.
(AP, 3/9/98)
1977 Mar 9, Activist Elisabeth
Kaesemann (30), a German sociologist, was abducted in Argentina. Her
bullet-riddled body was later found dumped on the outskirts of
Buenos Aires.
(www.hrw.org/reports/2001/argentina/argen1201-08.htm)

1979 Mar 9, In Oregon Janie
Landers (18) disappeared outside the Fairview Training Center for
the developmentally disabled, where she lived in Salem. Five days
later her body was found in a remote field with deep stab wounds in
her neck and her head bashed. In 2017 investigators using DNA
evidence linked her murder to Gerald Dunlap, a man who had worked at
Fairview’s laundry in 1979. Dunlap had died behind bars in 2002
while serving a prison sentence for first-degree sex abuse of a
family member.
(SFC, 11/4/17, p.C4)

1982 Mar 9, Charles J. Haughey
was chosen as Premier of Ireland. Haughey later admitted that he
received secret payments from businessmen during a period of
national recession.
(HN, 3/9/98)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.AA4)

1983 Mar 9, Margaret Heckler
was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services, the same day
Anne M. Burford resigned as head of the embattled Environmental
Protection Agency.
(AP, 3/9/08)

1989 Mar 9, Wendy Wasserstein's
"Heidi Chronicles," first produced by the Seattle Repertory Theater,
opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theater.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4538)
1989 Mar 9, The Senate rejected
President Bush's nomination of John Tower to be defense secretary by
a vote of 53-47.
(AP, 3/9/99)
1989 Mar 9, Eastern Airlines
filed for bankruptcy.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1989 Mar 9, Soviet Union
officially submitted to jurisdiction of the World Court.
(http://tinyurl.com/fc24t)
1989 Mar 9, Robert Mapplethorpe
(42), US photographer, died. In 2010 Patti Smith (63), his former
girlfriend, authored “Just Kids," a memoir of their 2-decade
relationship.
(www.mapplethorpe.org/foundation.html)(SSFC,
1/17/10, p.F1)

1990 Mar 9, Dr. Antonia Novello
(b.1944) was sworn in as the US surgeon general, becoming the first
woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job. Dr. Novello became
Commissioner of Health for the State of New York in 1999.
(AP,
3/9/98)(www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/history/bionovello.htm)

1991 Mar 9, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third, on a fact-finding mission to seven
countries, visited Kuwait following its liberation from Iraq.
(AP, 3/9/01)
1991 Mar 9, In Serbia Milosevic
ordered a crackdown on protests and 2 men were killed in the
Belgrade Square of the Republic.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.A15)

1993 Mar 9, Janet Reno sailed
through her confirmation hearing en route to becoming the nation's
first female attorney general.
(AP, 3/9/98)
1993 Mar 9, Rodney King
testified at the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers
accused of violating his civil rights, saying he'd been "attacked"
by the defendants.
(AP, 3/9/98)
1993 Mar 9, Bob Crosby
(b.1913), swing-era bandleader (Bobcats), died of cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Crosby)
1993 Mar 9, The All Parties
Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of 26 parties, formed as a united
political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri separatism and
advocated separation from India by peaceful means.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Parties_Hurriyat_Conference)(Econ
5/27/17, p.36)

1994 Mar 9, The U.N. Human
Rights Commission condemned anti-Semitism, putting the world body on
record for the first time as opposing discrimination against Jews.
(AP, 3/9/99)
1994 Mar 9, Fernando Rey
(b.1917), Spanish actor (French Connection), died of cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0721073/)

1995 Mar 9, President Clinton
eased travel restrictions on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and
invited him to the White House for St. Patrick's Day.
(AP, 3/9/00)
1995 Mar 9, House Republicans
unveiled their long-promised tax cut for families, businesses and
investors.
(AP, 3/9/00)
1995 Mar 9, Los Angeles police
detective Mark Fuhrman took the stand at the O.J. Simpson murder
trial, denying ever meeting a woman who had accused him of making
racist remarks.
(AP, 3/9/00)
1995 Mar 9, President
Konstantine Karamanlis (1907-1998) of Greece, resigned.
(www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/NewPol/Politics2.htm)
1995 Mar 9, Ian Ballantine
(b.1916), US publisher, died of a heart attack. He founded and
published the paperback line of Ballantine Books from 1952 to 1974
with his wife, Betty.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Ballantine)

1997 Mar 9, In Los Angeles
black Gangsta rapper Christopher G. Wallace (24), The Notorious
B.I.G. or aka Biggie Smalls, was shot and killed in a drive-by
shooting. He had been accused of being involved in a 1994 robbery in
which Tupac Shakur was shot and robbed of $40,000. In 1999 Amir
Muhammad, aka Harry Billups, was named as the suspected gunman.
Muhammad was suspected to have been hired by former LAPD officer
David A. Mack. In 2005 a judge declared a mistrial when large
numbers of LAPD documents were found that hadn’t been turned over to
the court.
(SFC, 3/10/97, p.A8)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A11)(SFC,
7/7/05, p.A3)(AP, 3/9/07)
1997 Mar 9, In Albania Pres.
Sali Berisha proposed a new government of reconciliation to
represent all political parties and offered to set new elections.
(SFC, 3/10/97, p.A8)
1997 Mar 9, French journalist
Jean-Dominique Bauby died in Paris. He had been completely paralyzed
in Dec 1995 and had recently finished dictating the book: “Le
Scaphandre et le Papillon" (The Diving Suit and the Butterfly) by
blinking his left eyelid, the only moveable part of his body. The
book was published 2 days before he died. The film “The Diving Bell
and the Butterfly," based on the book, was directed by Julian
Schnabel and opened in the US in 2007.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.A20)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.100)
1997 Mar 9, In the Sudan the
national Democratic Alliance (NDA) began an offensive in the
southern state of Equatoria.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A10)

1998 Mar 9, In a case pitting
former high school sweethearts against each other, Brian Peterson
pleaded guilty in Wilmington, Del., to manslaughter in the death of
his newborn son in a Newark, N.J., motel and agreed to testify
against the mother, Amy Grossberg. A month later, Grossberg also
pleaded guilty to manslaughter; she ended up serving nearly two
years of a 2 1/2-year sentence; Peterson served 1 1/2 years of a
two-year sentence.
(AP, 3/9/08)
1998 Mar 9, It was reported
that the government owned the fastest computer, an Intel ASCI Red
unit at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. It was designed to
perform 1.5 trillion operations per second. It was planned to
develop computers capable of 30 trillion calculations per second by
2001, and 100 trillion per second by 2004.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A7)
1998 Mar 9, A vast storm caused
deadly flooding in the US South and heavy snows in the Midwest. In
Elba, Alabama, the Pea River broke its levee and put the town under
5 feet of water. The death toll rose to 8 after 3 days of storms.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 9, In Israel soldiers
at a checkpoint killed 3 Palestinian laborers in a van near Hebron.
Two soldiers involved were arrested.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 9, In Paraguay a
military tribunal sentenced Lino Oviedo to 10 years in jail for
leading an attempted coup in 1996 and for insulting Pres. Wasmosy in
1997.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 9, An arms embargo was
imposed on Yugoslavia by the US, Britain and other powers.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)

1999 Mar 9, Pres. Clinton
visited Honduras and paid tribute to US military efforts in
rebuilding roads, bridges, schools and clinics following Hurricane
Mitch.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 9, Amtrak unveiled a
new high speed train for travel between Boston and New York in 3
hours. A New York to Washington run was expected to take 2 ½ hours.
The new Acela service was planned to begin in Nov or Dec.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A4)(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.B1)
1999 Mar 9, RJR Nabisco
Holdings Corp., the food-and-tobacco conglomerate, announced
that it would split its tobacco business from its food operations.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 9, A late winter storm
dumped snow from the upper Midwest to the East Coast and caused 3
deaths. 4 motorists died the next day.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A6)
1999 Mar 9, The Antigua Labor
Party won the elections and Prime Minister Lester Bird extended his
rule for another 5 years.
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 9, Ecuador declared a
60-day state of emergency prompted by the economic crises.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar 9, French police
arrested Javier Arizcuren-Ruiz, aka Kantauri, leader of the military
wing of the Basque ETA along with 5 other ETA members.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar 9, Serb tanks attacked
ethnic Albanian villages near Macedonia.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 9, A Sierra Leone
rebel leader made a radio appeal to his followers for a cease-fire
and peace talks.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 9, In South Africa a
gunman killed Patata Nqwaru, vice chairman of the local United
Democratic Movement in Cape Town.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A13)
1999 Mar 9, The UN announced a
program for India to set up schools in the eastern Punjab to get
children out of the carpet weaving industry. The US planned to
contribute $2 million to the $2.9 million program.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A13)

2000 Mar 9, Bill Bradley ended
his presidential bid, conceding the Democratic nomination to Vice
President Al Gore.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/9/01)
2000 Mar 9, John McCain
suspended his presidential campaign, conceding the Republican
nomination to George W. Bush.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/9/01)
2000 Mar 9, The US NASDAQ
market reached a record 5,000, ten weeks after passing 4,000.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 9, In Bosnia US Sec.
of state Madeleine Albright won a pledge from Croatian and Bosnian
Serb leaders to allow thousands of refugees to go home.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.A13)
2000 Mar 9, In Ecuador Pres.
Noboa signed a bill that made the US dollar the official currency.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D6)
2000 Mar 9, In Indonesia 2 days
of fighting left at least 30 people dead as Christian and Muslim
gangs clashed on Halmahera Island.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A9)
2000 Mar 9, In Norway Prime
Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik announced that his minority government
would resign following a failed vote of confidence in an
environmental dispute. He opposed new power plants to burn gas
supplies.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D6)
2000 Mar 9, In Moscow A Yak-40
aircraft crashed on takeoff from Sheremetyevo Airport and all 9
people aboard were killed. Among the dead were journalist Artyom
Borovik and oil executive Ziya Bazhayev.
(SFC, 3/9/00, p.A11)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D5)
2000 Mar 9, In Tuvalu a fire
swept through a locked dormitory and killed 18 teenage girls and
their supervisor.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D6)

2001 Mar 9, Federal regulators
warned power companies that they may have to refund $69 million to
California ratepayers for charging unreasonable prices.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 9, The DJIA fell
213.63 to 10,644, while the Nasdaq fell almost 116 to close at 2052.
Intel and Cisco announced thousands of job cuts.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 9, A judge in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., sentenced 14-year-old Lionel Tate to life in
prison for the 1999 killing of Tiffany Eunick, a 6-year old girl.
Tate, who had been convicted of first-degree murder, said he was
imitating pro-wrestling moves. Tate's first-degree murder conviction
and sentence were later overturned; he pleaded guilty to
second-degree murder and received a new sentence of probation, but
is now accused of violating that probation.
(AP, 3/9/02)(AP, 3/9/06)
2001 Mar 9, Attorney James St.
Clair (b.1920), who represented President Nixon at the height of the
Watergate scandal, died in Westwood, Mass., at age 80.
(AP, 3/9/02)(NW, 12/31/01, p.110)
2001 Mar 9, In Afghanistan the
smaller giant Buddha at Bamiyan was destroyed.
(SFC, 3/12/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 9, Ethnic Albanian
rebels launched attacks on Macedonian and Yugoslav forces on the
Kosovo border. 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A8)
2001 Mar 9, In Ukraine tens of
thousands of demonstrators rioted in Kiev to force Pres. Kuchma from
office.
(SFC, 3/10/01, p.A8)

2002 Mar 9, The Director’s
Guild of America voted top honors to director Ron Howard for the
film “A Beautiful Mind" starring Russel Crowe. Crowe portrayed John
Nash, a Nobel laureate who struggled with mental illness.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 9, Melissa Gilbert was
elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, defeating challenger
Valerie Harper.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2002 Mar 9, Jamil Abdullah
al-Amin, aka H. Rap Brown (58), was convicted by an Atlanta jury for
the murder of a sheriff’s deputy on Mar 16, 2000. Brown was
sentenced to life in prison without parole on Mar 13.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A6)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A4)(AP,
3/9/07)
2002 Mar 9, A Marine Corps
helicopter from Beaufort, SC, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean during a
rescue operation from a downed civilian helicopter. 2 people were
killed.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A6)
2002 Mar 9, The space shuttle
Columbia's astronauts released the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit
after five days of repairs.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2002 Mar 9, In Chicago
scaffolding under high winds tore loose from the John Hancock Center
and fatally crushed 3 people.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A6)
2002 Mar 9, In Burma the
military reported the arrests of 4 relatives of former dictator Ne
Win and the dismissal of some military officers for planning a coup.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A15)
2002 Mar 9, In Cairo Arab
foreign ministers met and voiced support for a Middle East peace
proposal by Saudi Arabia.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A16)
2002 Mar 9, A pair of
Palestinian gunmen tossed grenades and opened fire at a seafront
hotel in Netanya and 3 people were killed including a baby. A
Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a Jerusalem café and
killed 11 others. Israeli forces destroyed Arafat’s office building
in Gaza and left 6 Palestinians dead including a 15-year-old girl.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A1,16)
2002 Mar 9, In Pueblo, Mexico,
police arrested Benjamin Arellano Felix, head of the Tijuana drug
cartel.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A14)

2003 Mar 9, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole made
their debut as 2-minute TV commentators on 60 Minutes. Their 1st
topic was "tax cuts in times of war."
(WSJ, 3/7/03, p.A1)(NW, 3/17/03, p.45)
2003 Mar 9, Renee Zellwegger, lead actress
in "Chicago," won the top Screen Actors Guild Award along with
Daniel Day-Lewis, for his role in "Gangs of New York."
(SFC, 3/10/03, p.A2)
2003 Mar 9, In Chechnya 2 Russian armored
personnel carriers opened fire in Staraya Sunzha, killing 2
policemen.
(AP, 3/12/03)
2003 Mar 9, In southern India a van driver
lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a bus, killing 17
people and injuring 13 others.
(AP, 3/9/03)
2003 Mar 9, Nauru's Pres. Bernard Dowiyogo
(57), known as a pragmatic leader of the environmentally devastated
South Pacific island, died in Washington DC. He signed an executive
order as he lay dying, at the behest of US officials, ending the
Nauru offshore banking system and its economic-citizenship program.
(AP, 3/10/03)(WSJ, 5/16/03, p.A4)
2003 Mar 9, In Rawalpindi, Pakistan,
hundreds of thousands of people protested a possible US war with
Iraq.
(SFC, 3/10/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 9, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
leader of Turkey's ruling party, won a by-election. He was soon
confirmed as PM replacing Abdullah Gul.
(AP, 3/9/03)(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 9, In Venezuela Pres. Hugo Chavez
claimed an international campaign involving the US was trying to
discredit his government and he warned other countries not to be
fooled by the so-called smear tactics.
(AP, 3/9/03)

2004 Mar 9, John Allen Muhammad
(43) was sentenced to death in Manassas, Va., for his 2002 murder
rampage in the Washington DC area.
(SFC, 3/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 9, Britain ended a
3-year review and agreed to allow farmers to grow one variety
genetically modified "GM" corn.
(WSJ, 3/10/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 9, In Chad 2 days of
fighting broke out as the army battled Islamic militants near a
remote village on the country's western border with Niger, killing
43 "terrorists" of a group suspected of links with al-Qaida.
(AP, 3/12/04)
2004 Mar 9, China reported that
it would scrap the 8% tax on farmers' crops over the next 5 years.
The vestige of feudalism was established 4,000 years ago during the
Bronze Age.
(AP, 3/9/04)
2004 Mar 9, Colombian troops
killed at least 12 leftist guerrillas and captured 40 others in
separate offensives across the country.
(AP, 3/10/04)
2004 Mar 9, In Haiti Gerard
Latortue (69), a lawyer and economist, was named as interim prime
minister.
(SFC, 3/10/04, p.A8)
2004 Mar 9, In Iraq 2 US
civilians and their Iraqi interpreter were killed. 4 Iraqis were
arrested and appeared to be active Iraqi police officers working
with a Saddam Hussein loyalist.
(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.A1)(SFC, 3/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 9, Israeli forces
backed by tanks and combat helicopters raided the West Bank town of
Jenin, prompting a gun battle that killed a Palestinian woman in her
home.
(AP, 3/9/04)
2004 Mar 9, Groundbreaking
ceremonies were set for a research center on the Israeli-Jordan
border. The Bridging the Rift foundation, launched in 1999, planned
a $30 million environmental research center created with the
assistance of California's Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 2/28/04, p.A8)
2004 Mar 9, A shootout between
unidentified gunmen and government troops in Nigeria's oil city of
Warri killed five people, including one soldier. Separately an
overturned candle ignited a fire that raged through a shantytown in
Lagos.
(AP, 3/10/04)
2004 Mar 9, Pakistan tested its
longest-range missile yet, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and
hitting targets deep inside neighboring India.
(AP, 3/9/04)

2005 Mar 9, Dan Rather (73)
made his final news broadcast with CBS Evening News.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.A2)
2005 Mar 9, The acting boss of
the NYC Gambino family and at least 30 other mob figures were
arrested following an undercover FBI operation.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 9, In Las Vegas 2
retired NYC police detectives, Louis Eppolito (56) and Stephen
Caracappa (63), were arrested on federal charges of taking part in 8
murders on behalf of the Mafia. In 2009 both men were sentenced to
life in prison.
(SFC, 3/11/05, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A5)
2005 Mar 9, Michael Jackson's
young accuser took the witness stand, saying he once considered the
pop star being tried for allegedly molesting him "the coolest guy in
the world." Jackson was later acquitted.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2005 Mar 9, Information broker
LexisNexis reported that thieves hacked into records and stole
personal data on some 310,000 US individuals.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.A4)
2005 Mar 9, Chris LeDoux (56),
rodeo star and country singer, died in Wyoming from complications of
liver cancer.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 9, Senior officials
said China will use taxes from its fast-growing eastern cities to
help pay for rural social programs as it tries to close a widening
divide between rich and poor.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, Colombia extradited
to the United States a top member of the South American country's
main rebel group, a woman known by the nom de guerre of Sonia and
accused of running the insurgents' drug trafficking business.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, In Costa Rica
police stormed a bank in a hail of gunfire following a thwarted
robbery that turned into a 30-hour hostage standoff in the tourist
town of Santa Elena de Monteverde. Officials said nine people were
killed, including five bank customers.
(AP, 3/10/05)
2005 Mar 9, Egypt’s parliament
agreed to amend the Constitution to allow for 1st time
multi-candidate balloting.
(SFC, 3/10/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 9, Indonesia and East
Timor agreed to set up a commission to deal with atrocities
surrounding East Timor's 1999 vote for independence, despite
criticism led by the UN.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, Iraqi officials
said that 41 bodies, some bullet-riddled, others beheaded, have been
found at two separate sites. They believe some of the corpses are
Iraqi soldiers kidnapped and killed by insurgents. 4 people were
killed in Baghdad when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed
truck into a hotel used by US contractors.
(AP, 3/9/05)(WSJ, 3/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 9, President Bush's
envoy to Northern Ireland called for the IRA to disband after the
outlawed group made an unprecedented public offer to kill four men,
including two of its own expelled members, linked to a Belfast
slaying. The family of slain Northern Ireland man Robert McCartney
have said they had rejected the IRA's offer of vigilante justice
because only in court will "the truth come out."
(AP, 3/9/05)(AFP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, An Israeli inquiry
into the establishment of unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts
found widespread complicity of successive Israeli governments and
recommended that prosecutors consider investigations some of those
involved.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, In southern Mexico
a federal government helicopter searching for gunmen protecting drug
plantations crashed into a mountain, killing all nine soldiers and
two pilots onboard.
(AP, 3/10/05)
2005 Mar 9, In the southern
Philippines at least 27 children died from food poisoning after
eating a deep-fried caramelized cassava snack at school. Evidence
later revealed that a pesticide in the snack was the cause of death.
(AP, 3/9/05)(WSJ, 3/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 9, In South Africa
investigators began digging up the first of hundreds of unmarked
graves in a bid to close a chapter in South Africa's horrific
history.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, An earthquake shook
parts of northern South Africa, trapping 16 miners underground.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, Spanish serial
killer Alfredo Galan, nicknamed the "playing card assassin" because
he left a card at the scene of each murder, received jail sentences
totaling 142 years.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 9, Jan Egeland, UN
humanitarian chief, said far more people have died in Sudan's
ravaged Darfur region than the 70,000 reported since last year, and
many of those deaths were from preventable causes like pneumonia and
diarrhea. Egeland said some 180,000 people died in Darfur over the
past 18 months from hunger and disease.
(AP, 3/9/05)(Econ, 4/2/05, p.41)
2005 Mar 9, Syrian soldiers
flashed victory signs and waved automatic rifles as they drove east
through Lebanon's mountains in the first phase of a pullback.
Government lawmakers advised the president to bring back his
pro-Damascus prime minister who was forced by opposition protests to
resign.
(AP, 3/9/05)

2006 Mar 9, Pres. Bush signed a
weakened patriot Act into law, a day before parts of it were due to
expire.
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A5)
2006 Mar 9, Dubai Ports World
bowed to pressure from the US Congress and announced that it will
sell off its US operations to a US owner.
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A18)
2006 Mar 9, The US Commerce
Dept. reported that the US trade gap for January widened to a
record $68.51 billion.
(WSJ, 3/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 9, Claude Allen, who
stepped down last month as Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was
arrested in Maryland on charges he swindled two stores out of more
than $5,000.
(Reuters, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 9, Exxon Mobil Corp.
said it would appeal the ruling by a US judge to allow villagers to
sue the oil giant for alleged abuses by Indonesian troops at
facilities it operated in Aceh province.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, California
authorities ordered Michael Jackson to shut down his Neverland
Valley Ranch and fined the pop star $169,000 for failing to pay his
employees or maintain proper insurance.
(Reuters, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, Microsoft Corp.
took the wraps off its mysterious Project Origami, unveiling a
computer that's about the size of a large paperback book but runs a
full version of the Windows XP operating system.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, Google announced
that it has bought Upstartle LLC, whose Writely.com service allows
users to create, edit and share documents online.
(WSJ, 3/10/06, p.A16)
2006 Mar 9, Scientists from
Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico reported that they
produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees
Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.
(www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html)
2006 Mar 9, Scientists reported
that images from the Cassini spacecraft showed plumes of water
shooting from fissures near a heated region of Enceladus, a 300-mile
wide moon of Saturn.
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A8)
2006 Mar 9, World Kidney Day,
celebrated on the 2nd Thursday in March, began with the theme “Are
your kidneys ok?"
(www.worldkidneyday.org/about/#all-about-the-day)
2006 Mar 9, In Afghanistan’s
Helmand province a roadside bomb killed two Afghan soldiers when it
hit their convoy.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 9, In Argentina Raul
Castells opened a soup kitchen in the posh Puerto Madero section of
Buenos Aires near an outlet to the River Plate, with volunteers
serving fried bread cakes and hot herbal tea to about 600 people.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, An Argentine air
force plane providing aid for Bolivian flood victims crashed outside
of La Paz, killing all six people on board.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, The Bahamas Court
of Appeals ruled that Atain Takitota (41), a Japanese amnesiac who
was kept in a Bahamas prison and an immigration center for eight
years without being charged, was held unlawfully. He was awarded
$500,000 "for the loss of eight years and two months" of his life.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 9, John Profumo (91),
a former British Cabinet minister, died. His 1963 liaison with a
prostitute nearly brought down a government after revelations that
the call girl was also involved with a Soviet spy. Profumo was
Britain's secretary of state for war when he was involved with
Christine Keeler at the same time she was seeing a Soviet naval
attache and intelligence agent.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, More than 300
police backed by British and Irish troops mounted dawn raids on the
home turf of Thomas "Slab" Murphy, reputedly the Irish Republican
Army's veteran chief of staff and its most lucrative smuggler.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, A flood at a mine
in southwestern China killed 7 miners and injured 3 others. In
central China a coal mine explosion and fire killed 3 miners and
left six others missing.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, The Colombian navy
seized a 60-foot long submarine that likely was used to haul tons of
cocaine out to sea for shipment to the United States.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, The French
parliament, despite protests by students and unions, enacted a
much-contested law to reduce youth unemployment by using contract
jobs.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, In France
Christophe Fauviau (46), a father who drugged his children's tennis
opponents leading to one player's death, was sentenced to 8 years in
prison.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, About 8,000
Georgians took to the streets for the capital's biggest
anti-government demonstration since President Mikhail Saakashvili
was swept to power after leading the Rose Revolution protests more
than two years ago.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, A German laboratory
said the H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in a weasel-like mammal
called a stone marten.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, In southern Germany
a delivery van struck a funeral procession after the driver had a
fatal heart attack. The crash killed two mourners.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, Iran's supreme
leader Ali Khamenei and its president said that Tehran would not
abandon its nuclear program and rejected its referral to the U.N.
Security Council as unjust.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, Iraq hanged 13
insurgents, marking the first time militants have been executed in
the country since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein nearly
three years ago.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, The body of Tom Fox
(54), an American man taken hostage with three other Christian peace
activists in Nov 26, 2005, was found near a railroad line in Baghdad
with gunshots to his head and chest.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 9, A dust storm
enveloped Baghdad as explosions killed 11 people and wounded 19, all
civilians. The US military confirmed that a mass abduction from a
security firm was the work of kidnappers masquerading as Interior
Ministry commandos.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, The Bank of Japan
abandoned the super-easy monetary policy it has kept for five years,
saying it will gradually raise interest rates and start to cut the
excess cash in the banking system amid signs of economic recovery.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, In southwestern
Nepal communist rebels attacked a security checkpoint with bombs,
killing at least three government security forces and wounding five.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, A fuel oil spill
from a chemical plant in southeastern Norway threatened hundreds of
birds in a salt water nature preserve, while snow and ice hampered a
cleanup operation. Nearly 200 barrels leaked during the transfer of
fuel oil from a ship on March 4, but because of ice in the harbor
area the oil was not visible and was not discovered before the ice
broke up on March 8.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said new customs rules imposed by Ukraine to
tighten its border with Moldova's breakaway region violate a 1997
agreement and are an attempt to pressure the separatist
Russian-speaking enclave.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, In Turkey a bomb
set off by suspected Kurdish guerrillas killed three people and
injured 18 in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 9, In Turkey a bus
carrying about 40 people drove off a road and plunged into a river
before dawn, killing at least 16 passengers and injuring 11.
(AP, 3/9/06)

2007 Mar 9, President Bush
heralded a new ethanol agreement with Brazil as a way to boost
alternative fuels production across the Americas. One roadblock in
the Bush-Silva ethanol talks is a 54-cent tariff the United States
has imposed on every gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Bush
said it's not up for discussion.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller acknowledged the
FBI improperly used the Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal
information about Americans; they apologized and vowed to prevent
further illegal intrusions.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2007 Mar 9, The US began a
series of secret hearings to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist
leaders at its prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be declared
"enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by
military tribunals.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, A US appeals court
overturned a District of Columbia handgun ban.
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 9, Xinhua Finance
Media shares made their debut on the NYSE raising $300 million.
Fredy Bush (49), a US-born entrepreneur, served as CEO of Xinhua
Finance Ltd., the Shanghai-based parent of the US listed company.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 9, A report by the
Police Executive Research Forum said slayings since 2004 have jumped
over 10% among dozens of large US cities.
(SFC, 3/9/07, p.A6)
2007 Mar 9, Brad Delp (55),
lead singer of the rock band Boston, died at his home in New
Hampshire. The group’s self-titled debut album in 1976 was one of
the fastest selling I rock history.
(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 9, In Afghanistan a
remote-controlled roadside bomb ripped through the vehicle of Mullah
Naqeeb, an influential pro-government tribal elder, injuring him and
nine others. 6 people died after being wounded in the bombing of the
armored vehicle. The Afghan elder played a key role in dealing with
the Taliban. Police detained five men in connection with the killing
of a German aid worker in northern Afghanistan. The five were
detained in the province of Sari Pul, where Dieter Ruebling, 65,
worked for aid group German Agro Action. Two gunmen killed Ruebling
and robbed his three Afghan colleagues after stopping their two
vehicles near the village of Mirza Wolang in Sayyad district.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Nearly 20,000 fans
gathered at a stadium in Buenos Aires, not to watch soccer but to
hear Hugo Chavez bash George W. Bush.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Finance Minister
Jin Renqing said China is creating an investment company to make
more profitable use of its $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves,
in a move that could change the flow of billions of dollars in
global markets.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Greek Cypriots
demolished a wall along the boundary that for decades has split
Europe's last divided capital, a dramatic gesture that officials
hope will kick-start reconciliation on the Mediterranean island.
Plastic and metal screens replaced the wall.
(AP, 3/9/07)(SFC, 3/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 9, Ethiopia's foreign
minister said 5 European tourists who went missing last week in
northeastern Ethiopia are being held by kidnappers in a remote
tribal region.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, EU leaders agreed
on a bold set of measures to fight global warming, pledging that a
fifth of the bloc's energy will come from green power sources such
as wind turbines and solar panels by 2020 and that 10% of European
cars will run on biofuels.
(AP, 3/9/07)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 9, In Iran Robert
Levinson, a retired FBI agent, disappeared from the island of Kish,
a free trade zone. Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998 and became
a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in
early 2007, and his family has said that effort took him to Iran. In
2010 the AP confirmed Levinson’s ties to the CIA. In late 2010 his
family received proof that the father of seven was alive. In 2015
the US offered a $5 million reward to find Levinson.
(AP, 3/4/11)(AFP,
3/4/11)(SFC, 12/14/13, p.A5)(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2007 Mar 9, US forces killed a
suspected militant and captured 16 others in raids across Iraq.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Japan Aeon
supermarket chain said it will take a 15% stake in troubled Daiei
for 46.2 billion yen, or $393.5 million. The alliance would create
Japan's biggest retail grouping.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, President Felipe
Calderon proposed sweeping reforms to Mexico's justice system,
including US-style trials and a unified criminal code. Mexican
federal police detained 81 Chinese immigrants and 22 immigration
agents after the Chinese were discovered hiding in the Cancun
airport terminal, possibly with the protection of Mexican
immigration officers.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, The UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture said Nigerian police routinely torture
suspects, shooting them in the legs, beating them and hanging them
from the ceiling for long periods. Royal Dutch Shell said that it
has successfully contained a major oil spill in a production
facility in southern Nigeria but yet to regain output loss of
187,000 barrels per day.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AFP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, In Northern Ireland
substantial election results showed the polar extremes of politics
have strengthened their grip on the province's legislature, ensuring
they will control any future Catholic-Protestant administration.
Anna Lo (56), a Hong Kong native who has lived in Northern Ireland
for 32 years, became the first ethnic minority to be elected to
political office. Lo was one of seven people elected to the
108-member Northern Ireland Assembly from the Alliance Party, which
seeks to draw support from all sides of the community.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Pakistan's state
media reported that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf replaced
Iftikhar Chaudhry, the Islamic nation's chief justice, for "misuse
of authority." Chaudhry refused to resign and mass demonstrations
for his support soon followed.
(AP, 3/9/07)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.23)
2007 Mar 9, Thousands of people
across Spain took part in rallies called by the right wing
opposition to protest the Socialists government's decision to allow
a hunger-striking Basque separatist serve out his jail term under
house arrest.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, The Sri Lanka
Defense Ministry said ground troops, backed by artillery, had
captured three Tamil Tiger bases in the northeast in a major
military operation. Anti-insurgency commandos overran a rebel base
in eastern Sri Lanka, killing at least 20 guerrillas. Suspected
Tamil Tiger rebels shot dead four security personnel and four park
officials inside a wildlife sanctuary as fighting escalated
elsewhere on the island.
(AP, 3/9/07)(AFP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, A prominent Turkish
politician was convicted of breaching Swiss anti-racism laws by
saying that the early 20th-century killing of Armenians could not be
described as genocide. Perincek was charged with breaking Swiss law
by denying during a visit to Switzerland in 2005 that the World War
I-era killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians amounted to genocide.
He was ordered to pay a fine of $2,450 and was given a suspended
penalty of $7,360.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 9, Thailand's junta
chief urged people living in restive Muslim-majority provinces to
act as informants for security forces trying to quell three years of
separatist unrest.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Turkey lifted its
ban on YouTube two days after a court ordered the Web site blocked
because of videos that allegedly insulted the founder of modern
Turkey.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Zimbabwe state
media said authorities have sealed off the eastern Marange diamond
fields as part of measures to prevent plundering of the site.
(AP, 3/9/07)

2008 Mar 9, In Cupertino, Ca.,
2 racing cyclists, Kristy Gough (30) and Mat Peterson (29), were
killed during a training ride when a deputy sheriff veered into the
opposite lane of traffic on Stevens Canyon Road. Officer James
Council (27) said he had fallen asleep at the wheel. In 2009 Council
was sentenced to 4 months in jail and 800 hours of community
service.
(SFC, 3/10/08, p.A1)(SFC, 3/10/08, p.A1)(SFC,
3/12/08, p.C1)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.B1)
2008 Mar 9, Thousands of Afghan
students in Jalalabad chanted slogans and burned Danish and Dutch
flags in the latest in a series of protests over perceived insults
against Islam. 4 militants were killed in clashes with Afghan and
foreign troops in the Korengal Valley in the eastern province of
Kunar.
(AP, 3/9/08)(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 9, In Argentina a
passenger train slammed into a bus at a rural rail crossing before
dawn, killing 18 people and leaving at least 47 others injured.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 9, In Tanta, Egypt, at
least 5,000 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood
demonstrated against government attempts to block members from
registering their candidacy in April's key local elections.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 9, French voters went
to the polls for local elections predicted to deliver yet more bad
news to Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity has plummeted since his
triumphant presidential victory last year.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 9, In Hungary 80% of
voters in a referendum rejected small charges for doctor visits, and
hospital stays as well as tuition fees for higher education.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.67)
2008 Mar 9, An Israeli
Construction Ministry official said PM Ehud Olmert has approved new
construction in a West Bank settlement outside Jerusalem. An Israeli
soldier wounded by Gaza militants in a border ambush on Mar 6 died
of his wounds. The news immediately drew Palestinian condemnation.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 9, An army operation
began in western Kenya pursuing members of a group linked to bloody
clashes over land. Up to 30,000 people fled their homes.
(AP, 3/10/08)
2008 Mar 9, Moroccan security
forces arrested 19 members of the country's largest Islamic
opposition group. Another 25 were arrested as day earlier after they
tried to hold marches in solidarity with the Palestinians.
(Reuters, 3/10/08)
2008 Mar 9, Former Pakistani PM
Nawaz Sharif said he would join the late Benazir Bhutto's party in a
coalition, raising the prospect of a government hostile to President
Pervez Musharraf. Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif declared they would
work together in what came to be called the Murree declaration.
(Reuters, 3/9/08)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.52)
2008 Mar 9, Spaniards voted in
a general election after a divisive campaign dominated by economic
concerns. PM Zapatero won re-election as the Socialists gained five
seats for a total of 169 in the 350-seat parliament. The opposition
conservative Popular Party (PP) also gained five seats to reach 153,
while smaller left-wing parties and some nationalist parties lost
ground.
(AP, 3/9/08)(AP, 3/10/08)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 9, A government
newspaper reported that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has
signed into law a bill giving local owners the right to take
majority control of foreign companies, including mines and banks.
(Reuters, 3/9/08)

2009 Mar 9, President Barack
Obama signed an executive order reversing the US government’s ban on
funding stem-cell research today and pledge to “use sound,
scientific practice and evidence, instead of dogma" to guide federal
policy.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, The US and South
Korea began annual war games prompting North Korea to call its
military into full combat readiness.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 9, In North Carolina
Philip Guyett (42) pleaded guilty to falsifying records so that he
could sell human tissue from corpses that were riddled with cancer
or showed intravenous drug use. He was sentenced in October to 8
years in prison.
(Econ, 10/24/09,
p.38)(http://tinyurl.com/yfnbh8p)
2009 Mar 9, The latest American
Religious Identification Survey said 15% of respondents had no
religion, an increase from 14.2% in 2001 and 8.2% in 1990.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, Utah Gov. Jon
Huntsman and state house and senate leaders agreed to eliminate the
state’s 40-year-old private club system in an effort to boost
tourism.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 9, Virginia Gov. Tim
Kaine signed a bill that generally restricts smoking in bars and
restaurants to separate rooms that have their own ventilation.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 9, Merck & Co.
said it is buying Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion in stock
and cash in a deal that gives the companies more firepower to
compete in a drug industry facing slumping sales, tough generic
competition and intense pricing pressures. The merger was expected
to eliminate some 16,000 jobs.
(AP, 3/9/09)(SFC, 3/10/09, p.C1)
2009 Mar 9, California-based
Genencor, a division of Danisco A/S, announced the first transfer of
BioIsoprene™ product to The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. By
December the world’s first concept demonstration tires made with
BioIsoprene™ technology, a breakthrough alternative to replace a
petrochemically produced ingredient in the manufacture of synthetic
rubber with renewable biomass, made their debut in Copenhagen,
Denmark.
(http://tinyurl.com/27vewpy)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.79)
2009 Mar 9, Bolivia’s President
Evo Morales ordered a US diplomat to leave his country for allegedly
conspiring with opposition groups, further straining tense relations
six months after he expelled the American ambassador.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, China's President
Hu Jintao ordered a "Great Wall" against Tibetan separatism, as
extra soldiers were deployed to the Himalayan region on the 50th
anniversary of a failed anti-Chinese uprising. Homemade bombs
damaged police vehicles in a Tibetan part of western China.
Authorities expanded a security cordon across the restive region
ahead of the 50th anniversary of a failed revolt that sent the Dalai
Lama into exile.
(AFP, 3/9/09)(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, Chinese ships
surrounded and harassed a Navy mapping ship in international waters
off China, at one point coming within 25 feet of the American boat
and strewing debris in its path. The Obama administration said it
would continue naval operations in the South China Sea, most of
which China considers its territory, and protested to China about
what it called reckless behavior that endangered lives. China held
that the USNS Impeccable was operating illegally inside its 200-mile
exclusive economic zone.
(AP, 3/10/09)(WSJ, 3/11/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 9, Dubai’s public
prosecution indicted 7 suspects on bribery and fraud charges
alleging losses to the Dubai Islamic Bank of over $501 million in
fake deals from 2004 to 2007. Two of the men had left the country.
(WSJ, 3/10/09, p.A7)
2009 Mar 9, A group of Egyptian
army cadets stormed a police station in a southern suburb of Cairo,
leaving at least five policemen and three cadets injured. The attack
came after a local police chief arrested a cadet on March 5 for
loitering on a street corner and refusing to show any ID. The cadet
was taken to the police station, beaten and held overnight.
(AP, 3/11/09)
2009 Mar 9, A cargo ship sank
off the Red Sea coast of Egypt shortly after leaving port, leaving
14 sailors missing. At least 2 crew members drowned. 10 people were
rescued when the 5,600-tonne Ibn al-Battuta went down in the sea off
the port of Abu Dhunaima in Egypt’s Safaga region.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, French lawmakers
passed an amendment to ban the sale of alcohol to teens under 18,
part of an effort to tackle the rise of binge drinking in a country
known for a relaxed attitude toward a little libation.
(AP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 9, Helg Sgarbi, a man
dubbed "the Swiss gigolo" by the German media, was sentenced to six
years in prison for defrauding BMW heiress Susanne Klatten (46),
Germany's richest woman, of euro7 million ($9 million) and
attempting to blackmail her for tens of millions more.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Iraq rockets
slammed into the British military base outside the southern city of
Basra, killing one civilian. It was the first such attack on the
base in nearly three months.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, The Icelandic
government took control of Straumur Burdaras Investment Bank hf.,
the last of the major Icelandic banks to collapse after running out
of liquidity.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Mexico gunmen
killed six people, including the police chief of Pungarabato, in a
series of attacks in mountain towns in the Pacific coast state of
Guerrero. Gunmen also shot and killed a Michoacan state police
commander outside police headquarters in the city of Zamora.
(AP, 3/9/09)(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 9, In Northern Ireland
Constable Stephen Paul Carroll (48) was shot in the head in an area
known to be home to nationalist republican supporters in Craigavon,
20 miles southwest of Belfast. The Continuity IRA said it killed the
police officer. On March 30, 2012, Brendan McConville (40) and John
Paul Wootton (20) were both found guilty of murder following a
two-month trial.
(AFP, 3/10/09)(AP, 3/10/09)(AP, 3/30/12)
2009 Mar 9, Pakistan's top
security official warned opposition leader Nawaz Sharif that his
recent anti-government speeches amounted to treason, ratcheting up
tensions in the country ahead of planned protest rallies this week.
A tribe in the northwestern Bajur region, where the military has
fought insurgents, agreed to stop sheltering foreign fighters and
hand over local Taliban leaders. A tribal elder said some militants
could be pardoned and freed.
(AP, 3/9/09)(AP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 9, The Sri Lankan
military said its troops had killed at least 250 Tamil Tigers during
a weekend of fierce fighting around the rebels' shrinking fiefdom in
the northeast of the island.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sudan 4 soldiers
from the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in the war-torn
Darfur region have been wounded in an ambush.
(AFP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sweden
researchers reported that a chimpanzee named Santino had collected a
stash of rocks and then hurled them at visitors at the Furuvik Zoo,
confirming that apes can plan ahead just like humans.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 9, In Uganda a cargo
plane carrying equipment for African Union peacekeepers in Somalia
caught fire and crashed into Uganda's Lake Victoria shortly after
takeoff, killing all 11 people on board.
(AP, 3/9/09)

2010 Mar 9, In Washington, DC,
same sex couple began to marry as the district became the 6th place
in the US to conduct same sex marriages.
(SFC, 3/10/10, p.A10)
2010 Mar 9, San Francisco
officials ordered the shutdown of all drug testing at the police
crime lab amid allegations that Deborah J. Madden (60), a former
technician, stole and used some of the cocaine she was supposed to
analyze. Madden had officially retired this month. On March 15,
2013, Madden pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cocaine possession.
(SFC, 3/10/10, p.A1)(SFC, 2/16/13, p.C1)
2010 Mar 9, Rodney Alcala (66),
an amateur photographer, was convicted in southern California of
killing a girl and 4 women between 1977 and 1979. The Santa Ana jury
recommended a death penalty. Photographic evidence from a Seattle
storage locker, rented before his arrest in 1979, linked him to at
least one woman listed for decades as missing. On march 30 Alcala
was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 3/11/10, p.A8)(SFC, 3/17/10, p.C3)(SFC,
3/31/10, p.A7)
2010 Mar 9, University of
Florida researcher Nam Dang and colleagues in Japan said that papaya
leaf extract and its tea have dramatic cancer-fighting properties
against a broad range of tumors, backing a belief held in a number
of folk traditions.
(AFP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, An Ohio State Univ.
custodian, Nathaniel Brown (51), killed a supervisor and wounded
another and then killed himself. Brown had been told that he was
being fired.
(SFC, 3/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 9, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed two Afghan border police and a
civilian riding in their vehicle. A Taliban operative wearing an
Afghan police uniform infiltrated NATO’s Chergotah base in Khost
province and detonated his explosive vest next to a group of
soldiers who were warming their hands beside a fire. 2 NATO service
members were killed.
(AP, 3/9/10)(AP, 3/10/10)
2010 Mar 9, China and India
gave a qualified approval to the nonbinding Copenhagen climate
accord brokered by Pres. Obama in the final hours of the December,
2009, climate summit.
(SFC, 3/10/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 9, Indonesia’s
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono flew into Canberra with PM Kevin
Rudd and Governor-General Quentin Bryce waiting on the red carpet.
He was soon appointed an honorary companion of the Order of
Australia for his work after the 2002 Bali bombing. Yudhoyono will
become the first Indonesian leader to address a joint sitting of
Australia's parliament on March 10.
(AFP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Indonesia 3
terror suspects were killed during raids near Jakarta. One of the
dead included Dulmatin, one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali
bombings. Police soon confirmed his identity. An additional terror
suspect was arrested in Jakarta earlier in the day, bringing to 24
the number of suspects taken into custody on Java and Aceh since
Feb. 22 in a police crackdown on a suspected Jemaah Islamiyah cell.
(AP, 3/9/10)(AFP, 3/10/10)
2010 Mar 9, US Vice President
Joe Biden visited Israel and pledged Washington's full commitment to
Israel's security while throwing his weight behind a renewal of
Middle East peace talks after a 14-month hiatus. Biden assured
Israel of Washington's commitment to its security and preventing
Iran from producing nuclear weapons.
(AP, 3/9/10)(Reuters, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, Israeli officials
said Israel wants to build a nuclear power plant, a move that could
bring new attention to the country's secretive nuclear activities.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, Japan confirmed for
the first time the existence of once-secret Cold War-era pacts with
the US that tacitly allowed nuclear-armed warships to enter Japanese
ports in violation of Tokyo's postwar principles.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Mexico Ramon
Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal
police, said that Texas-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, nicknamed "La
Barbie," is battling Hector Beltran Leyva for control of the Beltran
Leyva cartel.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Somalia fighting
between Islamist insurgents and Somali government forces killed five
people in Mogadishu. 4 masked gunmen also shot dead an Islamist
commander in the capital's Bakara market.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Switzerland a
senior Google executive welcomed a US decision to relax restrictions
on exporting Internet communications services to Iran, Sudan and
Cuba.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 9, Venezuela's
government seized control of two sugar mills and threatened to
expropriate them, accusing managers of hoarding a basic good and
violating the labor rights of employees. The government also raised
the price of sugar by 30% as mill owners struggled to turn a profit
due to price controls.
(AP, 3/9/10)

2011 Mar 9, President Barack
Obama said he had chosen Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to be the
next US ambassador to China, replacing Jon Huntsman, a Republican
who is stepping down and mulling a run for the presidency.
(Reuters, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, The US space
shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida
completing its 39th and final voyage.
(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 9, Illinois Gov. Pat
Quinn signed into law a ban on the death penalty and commuted the
sentences of 15 death row inmates to life without parole.
(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 9, NPR president and
CEO Vivian Schiller resigned in the wake of comments by a fellow
executive that angered conservatives and renewed calls to end
federal funding for public broadcasting.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, US auto giant Ford
said it will start exporting its top-selling Figo compact car from
India to Mexico and over 50 other countries as it strives to make
the South Asian nation an export hub.
(AFP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Forbes magazine
said Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim (71), with assets of $74 billion, is
the richest person in the world for the second year in a row.
(Reuters, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, David S. Broder
(b.1929), Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post,
died in Arlington, Va.
(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A8)
2011 Mar 9, The 5-day SXSW
Interactive festival opened in Austin, Texas. Attendees awarded
GroupMe the festival’s Breakout digital Trend award.
(Econ, 3/26/11,
p.74)(http://sxsw.com/interactive/awards/winners)
2011 Mar 9, Robert Phillip
"Bob" Marcucci (b.1930), Philadelphia talent manager, died. The
former personal manager at Chancellor Records and Robert P. Marcucci
Productions discovered and managed the careers of Fabian and Frankie
Avalon, amongst others. The 1980 movie, The Idolmaker, is loosely
based on his life in the record industry.
(SFC, 3/16/11,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marcucci)
2011 Mar 9, In Australia Todd
Bairstow (28) was fishing with his dog at a creek near the town of
Weipa in northern Queensland when a four-meter (13-feet) saltwater
crocodile lunged at him and tried to drag him under the water. The
crocodile only retreated after Bairstow's friend heard his screams
from the nearby pub and helped beat off the predator.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 9, In Egypt attackers,
said to be pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with knives and machetes waded
into hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Cairo's Tahrir Square,
as insecurity raged. Military authorities detained women in Tahrir
Square and forced 18 of them to undergo “virginity tests."
(AFP, 3/9/11)(SFC, 6/1/11, p.A6)(SFC, 6/28/11,
p.A2)
2011 Mar 9, In Greece some 250
mostly North African immigrants ended a 6-week hunger strike after
government ministers granted them temporary permission to remain in
Greece.
(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 9, Guyana police Sgt.
Dexter Clemenston was accused of raping and sodomizing a 19-year-old
recruit after beating him unconscious at the national force's
headquarters.
(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, In Honduras
security officials discovered a cocaine lab in a mountainous area in
the northeast reachable only on foot or in all-terrain vehicles.
Evidence suggested Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel installed and ran the
lab.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 9, Iranian security
forces killed three people in the western province of Kurdistan who
were behind an attack on a group of environmental workers. IRNA said
the three had killed four environmental workers near the city of
Sanandaj on March 4.
(Reuters, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, Ireland's Enda
Kenny was elected prime minister with a record majority on and
pledged to lift the euro zone struggler out of its "darkest hour" as
talks on a bailout loom.
(Reuters, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Japan's center-left
government named as its new foreign minister Takeaki Matsumoto, who
hails from a powerful political family but faces tricky relations
with the US, China and Russia.
(AFP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, A high-ranking
member of the Libyan military flew to Cairo with a message for
Egyptian army officials from Moammar Gadhafi, whose troops pounded
opposition forces with artillery barrages and gunfire in at least
two major cities. Forces loyal to Gaddafi closed in on rebels in the
western city of Zawiyah. Rebels said Gaddafi's forces hit an oil
pipeline leading to Es Sider and dropped bombs on storage tanks in
the Ras Lanuf oil terminal area. Libya's exiled crown prince asked
foreign powers to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and strike
Gaddafi's air defenses, but said the Libyan people would not want
international forces on the ground.
(AP, 3/9/11)(Reuters, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Morocco’s King
Mohammed VI said the constitution will be revised for the first time
in 15 years to strengthen democracy. He said voters will get to vote
on the project in a referendum.
(SFC, 3/10/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 9, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber struck a funeral attended by anti-Taliban
militiamen, killing at least 36 mourners and wounding more than 100
in the deadliest militant attack in the country this year. The
Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Portugal's two-year
cost of borrowing hit the highest level since it joined the euro in
a bond auction. The government said yields were unsustainable in the
long run without Europe-wide action.
(Reuters, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, In Puerto Rico
masked gunmen raided a waterfront casino, forced gamblers to the
floor and fled with more than $200,000, leaving a trail of bills
fluttering along the beach.
(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, Somali pirates
released the MV Rak Afrikana cargo ship with 25 crew onboard. The
sailors were forced to abandon the ship shortly after they were
freed because the it had a hole in the hull and was taking on water.
The Rak Afrikana was seized by pirates in April 2010.
(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, Thailand police
officers in Phitsanulok province, acting on information from a
previous operation, interrupted the loading of drugs onto trucks
overnight. Seven or eight suspects fled during the raid, leaving
four bags with 986,000 methamphetamine pills and more than 100
pounds (48 kg) of crystallized methamphetamine.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Uganda police
scuffled with protesters in the capital, Kampala, and tear gas was
used. 10 demonstrators and several police were injured. 8
demonstrators were arrested.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, A group of citizens
in the United Arab Emirates petitioned the rulers to allow the
people to elect parliament. The petition was addressed to the
Emirates' president and the ruler of the oil-rich capital Abu Dhabi,
Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, A Yemeni man died
of gunshot wounds after the army raided the university campus in
Sanaa and opened fire on hundreds of anti-government protesters
gathered there.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 9, Zimbabwe won its
biggest foreign investment in a decade with a $750-million steel
deal. The agreement gave India's Essar Group a 54% stake in the
mothballed state steel firm Zisco, in a deal worth 12.5 times
Zimbabwe’s total 2009 recorded foreign investment.
(AFP, 3/13/11)(http://tinyurl.com/4w97xuq)

2012 Mar 9, Ohio state
regulators said a dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost
certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the
earth and announced tougher regulations for drillers.
(SFC, 3/10/12, p.A5)
2012 Mar 9, In Washington state
a man stabbed judge and shot a sheriff’s deputy in a courthouse
struggle in Montesano. Steven Daniel Kravitz (35) was arrested the
next day. The judge and deputy were treated at a hospital and
released.
(SSFC, 3/11/12, p.A8)
2012 Mar 9, In Afghanistan the
US signed a deal transferring the controversial Bagram prison to
Afghan control, marking a breakthrough in negotiations over a
strategic treaty between the two nations. The US would maintain a
presence at the prison to provide advisory, technical and logistical
support for a year. Insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Nangarhar
province. Two border policemen and three attackers were killed in
the ensuing firefight.
(AFP, 3/9/12)(AP, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Bahrain tens of
thousands of anti-government protesters flooded a major highway in
one of the largest opposition rallies in months against the Gulf
nation's Sunni rulers. Security forces fired tear gas at smaller
groups attempting to reach a heavily guarded square that was once
the hub of the uprising.
(AP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, Barclays Bank said
Chief Executive Bob Diamond was paid 6.3 million pounds $10 million
(6 million pounds) for 2011, down from 9 million in 2010, and his
two lieutenants running investment banking were paid slightly more.
(Reuters, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Canada PM
Stephen Harper said a new pedestrian link, to be operational by
2014, would help give Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport the service it
deserves. The new tunnel will eliminate the need for a short ferry
ride to the downtown island airport.
(Reuters, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 9, Germany’s Bild
daily proclaimed that a bare-breasted front page blond would be the
Berlin paper’s last of more than 5,000 women who have appeared since
1984.
(SFC, 3/10/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 9, Greece's creditors
agreed to take cents on the euro in the biggest debt write down in
history. The government said that 83.5 percent of private investors
holding its government debt had agreed to a bond swap that would
involve them taking a cut in more than half the face value of their
investments with softer repayment terms for Greece.
(AP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Ireland Paul
Begley (46), head of Ireland's largest fruit and vegetable
producers, was found guilty of dodging taxes and sentenced to 6
years in prison. He had instructed Chinese food suppliers from
2003-2007 to produce false invoices labeling garlic as apples
avoiding some $1.8 million in taxes.
(SFC, 3/10/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 9, An Israeli
airstrike struck a vehicle in Gaza. The airstrike tore apart the
blue sedan of militant commander Zuhair al-Qaissi and killed his
son-in-law, Mahmoud Hanini, himself a top PRC commander. Another
low-ranking Gaza militant also died. Al-Qaissi was the commander of
the militant group behind the abduction of Gilad Schalit. Hours
later Israeli military killed two more militants that it said were
about to launch rockets. Gaza militants in response unleashed a
barrage of rockets toward Israel's southern border communities. Some
three dozen were fired.
(AP, 3/9/12)(AFP, 3/9/12)(AP, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 9, Japan said its
Antarctic whaling fleet has killed less than a third of the animals
it planned to because of sabotage by activists, as it announced the
end of the season's hunt. Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one
fin whale, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for
when they left Japan in December.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Kenya hundreds
of nurses marched through the capital in a demand for better pay,
even after the government sacked all 25,000 taking part in the
strike.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, Kiribati President
Anote Tong said that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy
nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. He said the
fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million,
could provide an insurance policy for Kiribati's entire population
of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone
to leave.
(AP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, The Libyan
transitional government won possession of a plush London mansion
belonging to a son of the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi. The
house, in the exclusive Hampstead Garden Suburb district of north
London, was worth in excess of £10 million ($15.7 million, 12
million euros).
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Mexico drug
criminals set 25 Guadalajara city buses and other vehicles on fire
in 16 different places, spreading fear throughout Mexico's
second-largest city.
(AP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, Mexican authorities
found the remains of 167 people in a southern Mexican cave on the
Nuevo Ojo de Agua ranch in an area frequently used by Central
American migrants traveling north. Forensic experts believe the
remains are at least 50 years old.
(AP, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Nigeria Abu
Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping of a Briton and
an Italian, died following bullet wounds sustained during a raid in
Zaria 2 days earlier.
(AFP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Pakistan a US
drone killed at least eight militants when it fired two missiles on
a vehicle in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan. Taliban militants
armed with guns and rockets ambushed a Pakistani military convoy,
killing 7 soldiers in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan. 9
militants were also reported killed in the attack.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Pakistan team
leader Gerfried Goschl, climber Cedric Hahlen and high altitude
porter Nisar Hussain, part of an expedition to Gasherbrum-1, the
highest peak in the mountain range on the Pakistan-China border,
went missing.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Panama Michel
Smith, a fugitive wanted in Canada for 22 murders, was detained in
the Playa Coronado tourist region. Canadian police have been looking
for Smith, suspected of ties to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang,
since a massive 2009 gang sweep in the province of Quebec.
(AP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 9, Russia said it
opposed an "unbalanced" Washington-backed UN draft resolution on
Syria because it failed to call for a simultaneous halt in violence
by the government and rebels.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, A South African
court cleared the way for the world's top retailer Wal-Mart to take
its first foothold in Africa by dismissing a government bid to set
aside its $2.2 billion takeover of local chain Massmart.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, Sri Lanka issued a
directive imposing censorship on security-related mobile phone
messages despite the withdrawal last year of tough emergency laws
following the end of its separatist war with Tamil rebels.
(AFP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 9, Sri Lanka’s army
said 3 soldiers were found shot dead after an argument between them
in the Tamil-majority Jaffna peninsula.
(AFP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, The leader of
Syria's main opposition group, Burhan Ghalioun, rejected calls by UN
envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with President Bashar Assad's
government, saying such talks are pointless and unrealistic as long
as the regime massacres its own people. Activists said at least 26
people were killed across Syria today.
(AP, 3/9/12)
2012 Mar 9, In Ukraine Oksana
Makar (18) was invited by two young men, ages 21 and 23, to their
friend's apartment, where the three men allegedly gang-raped her,
tried to choke her to death, wrapped her in a sheet, took her to a
construction site, dumped her in a pit and set her on fire. After
surgery 55% of her skin was gone, her kidneys were completely
burned, and one of her arms and both her feet had to be amputated.
The suspects were arrested the next day, but two of them were
released soon after. The two men who were released are the sons of
former government officials. On March 13 the two men were arrested,
and all three suspects were charged with attempted murder. Makar
died of her injuries on March 29. Murder was added to the rape
chargers against the suspects.
(http://tinyurl.com/798q68z)(AP, 3/29/12)

2013 Mar 9, An asteroid as big
as a city block shot relatively close by the Earth. Discovered just
six days ago, the 460-foot long (140m) Asteroid 2013 ET passed about
600,000 miles from Earth.
(Reuters, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, In Kentucky 2
adults and 5 children were killed in a house fire in Gray, Knox
County.
(SSFC, 3/10/13, p.A8)
2013 Mar 9, In Renton,
Washington, Robert Taylor (82) and his wife Norma (80) were killed
in an overnight attack. Michael Boysen (26), their grandson recently
released from prison, was suspected of their murder. Boysen was
captured with a self-inflicted cut in a hotel room on March 12.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A4)(SFC, 3/13/13, p.A6)
2013 Mar 9, In Afghanistan
militants staged two suicide attacks that killed at least 19 people
in Kabul an d Khost city on the first full day of US Defense
Secretary Chuck Hagel's visit.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, An Egyptian court
confirmed the death sentences against 21 people for taking part in a
Feb, 2012, deadly soccer riot but acquitted 7 police officials for
their alleged role in the violence. Suspected fans enraged by the
verdict torched the soccer federation headquarters and a police club
in Cairo in protest. In unrelated violence, at least 2 protesters
were killed in clashes between riot police and demonstrators
throwing stones on a Nile-side street in central Cairo.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, Max Jakobson (89),
a former Finnish diplomat, died. He helped shape his country's
policy of neutrality during the Cold War.
(AP, 3/21/13)
2013 Mar 9, In Japan thousands
of people rallied in a Tokyo park, demanding an end to atomic power
and vowing never to give up the fight, despite two years of little
change after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, Jordan's parliament
voted for the monarchy's caretaker prime minister to form a new
Cabinet, the first time in the country's history that the
legislature rather than the king has decided who will be head of
government. Abdullah Ensour, a former liberal lawmaker, was elected.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, Kenya's election
commission named Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of the country's
presidential election with 50.07%. Opponent, PM Raila Odinga,
refused defeat and alleged multiple failures in the vote saying
Kenya's democracy was on trial.
(AP, 3/9/13)(SSFC, 3/10/13, p.A5)
2013 Mar 9, Malaysia police
said they have detained 79 suspects linked to the Filipino intruders
in Borneo.
(SSFC, 3/10/13, p.A6)
2013 Mar 9, In Myanmar the
opposition National League for Democracy, founded in 1988, began its
first ever national congress.
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.41)
2013 Mar 9, Ansaru, a breakaway
Islamic extremist group in Nigeria, said it killed 7 foreigners who
its members kidnapped from northern Nigeria on Feb 16. Those
kidnapped included three Lebanese citizens and one each from
Britain, Greece, Italy and the Philippines — all employees of
Setraco, a Lebanese construction company with an operation in Bauchi
state.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, North Korea
formally rejected a UN Security Council resolution that demands an
end to its nuclear arms program, as China called for calm, saying
sanctions were not the "fundamental" way to resolve tensions on the
Korean peninsula.
(AP, 3/9/13)
2013 Mar 9, In eastern Pakistan
hundreds of people in Lahore ransacked a Christian neighborhood and
torched dozens of homes after hearing reports that a Christian man
had committed blasphemy against Islam's prophet. In 2017 a court
acquitted 155 people who were accused of torching homes in the
Christian neighborhood. A bomb exploded in a Sunni mosque in the
northwest, killing at least four people and wounding more than 25
others in Peshawar.
(AP, 3/9/13)(AP, 1/29/17)
2013 Mar 9, Syrian rebels
released 21 UN Filipino peacekeepers, captured on March 6, and
handed them to Jordanian authorities. Government airstrikes killed
at least 14 people in the northern province of Raqqa. Gunmen
kidnapped and killed a mediator's son, Kifah Bitar, and another man,
Rony Elias, in a Christian village near Homs.
(AP, 3/9/13)(AP, 3/10/13)(AP, 3/11/13)

2014 Mar 9, In NYC thousands of
ultra-Orthodox Jews filled the streets of lower Manhattan to protest
Israel’s decision to draft strictly religious citizens into its
army.
(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 9, Afghanistan's
influential VP Mohammad Qasim Fahim (57) died. He was a leading
commander in the alliance that fought the Taliban and was later
accused with other warlords of targeting civilian areas during the
country's civil war. A bomb exploded near a store, killing 2
civilians and wounding two others in the Spin Boldak district of
Kandahar province.
(AP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, The Arab League
endorsed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's rejection of Israel's
demand for recognition as a Jewish state, as US-backed peace talks
approach a deadline next month.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, Brazilian officials
inaugurated the Arena da Amazonia in the jungle city of Manaus, the
ninth World Cup stadium to become available for football's showcase
event. Three still have to be finished, including the one hosting
the opener in Sao Paulo in about three months.
(AP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, Colombia held
congressional elections. Voters showed lukewarm support for peace
talks with guerrillas by giving the country's president a majority
in Congress, but also electing his conservative rival, ex-president
Alvaro Uribe, to the senate.
(AFP, 3/10/14)
2014 Mar 9, In Cuba Melba
Hernandez (b.1921), a "heroine of the Cuban Revolution," died. She
was one of two women who helped Fidel Castro launch his
revolutionary battle with a failed 1953 attack on the Moncada
military barracks.
(AP, 3/10/14)
2014 Mar 9, Egypt's powerful
military chief launched a housing initiative to build a million
homes in cooperation with a major Emirati construction firm, the
first campaign-style move by Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi,
who is widely expected to run for president.
(AP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, El Salvador held a
2nd round of presidential elections. Former Marxist guerrilla leader
Salvador Sanchez Ceren (FMLN) was expected to win the presidency
after promising to expand social programs for the poor and fending
off his opponent's claims that he will impose radical policies. Mr.
Sanchez won by just 6,634 votes. In 2017 a gangster named Nalo
testified that politicians from the two main parties had paid
gangsters for votes. The FMLN allegedly paid $250,000 and Arena
$100,000, which the gangs spent on M-16s and AK-47s.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)(AP, 3/10/14)(Econ, 1/26/17,
p.27)
2014 Mar 9, Two Indonesian
naval personnel were killed during an inspection aboard a Thai
fishing boat in Indonesian waters. Thailand police soon arrested
three suspects. Four more were arrested in April.
(AP, 4/4/14)
2014 Mar 9, In southern Iraq a
suicide bomber driving a minibus packed with explosives killed 21
civilians and 15 security personnel in Hillah. A gun attack on a
checkpoint North of Hilla left 2 policemen dead and four others
wounded. In Abu Ghraib gunmen shot dead at least 2 soldiers and
wound one at an army checkpoint. Six attacks north of the capital
killed 3 policemen and two soldiers and wound nearly 40.
(www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26505128)(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 9, Italian authorities
in the northern city of Lecco arrested an Albanian mother who
confessed to stabbing to death her three young daughters. The father
had departed for Albania a day earlier, and the mother had no job.
(AP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, In Japan thousands
of people rallied in Tokyo and marched to parliament to demand an
end to nuclear power.
(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 9, Japanese astronaut
Koichi Wakata (50) assumed command of the Int’l. Space Station
(ISS).
(SSFC, 3/16/14, p.A4)
2014 Mar 9, Libya's Defense
Ministry said it has authorized the military to use force to stop a
North Korean-flagged tanker from loading crude oil at a rebel-held
port, bypassing the Tripoli government.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, In Mexico Nazario
Moreno Gonzalez, a leader of the Knights Templar, was killed in a
shootout with police near Apatzingan, Michoacan state. He had been
reported slain in 2010, but his body was never found.
(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 9, Almost all North
Koreans cast their ballots in a pre-determined election for a
rubber-stamp parliament, an exercise that doubles as a national head
count and may offer clues to power shifts in Pyongyang.
(AFP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, A court in Oman
sentenced a former executive of an engineering firm to a total of 15
years in jail for five counts of bribery in exchange for contracts
from a state-owned oil company. This was the second against former
managing director of Galfar Engineering and Contracting, Mohammed
Ali, who was sentenced to three years in jail in January over bribes
made to Petroleum Development Oman (PDO).
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, Russians took over
a Ukrainian border post on the western edge of Crimea, trapping
about 15 personnel inside. Germany's Angela Merkel delivered a
rebuke to President Vladimir Putin, telling him that a planned
Moscow-backed referendum on whether Crimea should join Russia was
illegal and violated Ukraine's constitution.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, A Sierra Leone
airport official said International airlines have cancelled flights
to and from Sierra Leone after a UN aviation regulator discovered
that the only functioning fire engine at its main airport had broken
down.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, Somali officials
said African peacekeepers (AMISOM) operating with government forces
have recaptured several strategic towns in the southwest from the
Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militia. Witnesses reported fierce fighting
in Buudhubow.
(AFP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, In Syria Ali
Moustafa, a Canadian freelance photographer, was killed alongside 7
other people after government aircraft dropped two explosive-laden
containers in the rebel-held Hadariyeh area of Aleppo.
(AP, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 9, Yemeni sources said
at least 40 people have been killed in three days of fighting
between Shi'ite Muslim rebels and Sunni tribesmen.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)

2015 Mar 9, President Barack
Obama issued an executive order declaring a “national emergency"
because of the “extraordinary threat to the national security" posed
by Venezuela. He levied new sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials
who the US says have violated human rights and engaged in acts of
public corruption.
(Econ., 3/21/15, p.31)(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, A letter signed by
47 Republican senators warned Iran that any nuclear deal made with
US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, could last only as long as he
remained in office.
(http://tinyurl.com/kkk97ph)
2015 Mar 9, The United States
delivered more than 100 pieces of military equipment to vulnerable
NATO-allied Baltic states in a move designed to provide them with
the ability to deter potential Russian threats.
(AFP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, It was reported
that Ronald Linde and his wife Maxine have pledged $50 million to
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for promising
initiatives and research at the Pasadena campus.
(SFC, 3/9/15, p.A5)
2015 Mar 9, Paul Kalanithi,
Indian-American neurosurgeon at Stanford (b.1977) died of lung
cancer. His book “When Breath Becomes Air" was published in 2016.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kalanithi)(Econ, 2/6/15, p.77)
2015 Mar 9, In Oakland, Ca.,
Cheymil Pierce (30), a mother of three, was killed by a stray bullet
on the 2800 block of Chestnut St. Police the next day arrested
Anthony Sims (19) at Highland Hospital after he was wounded in the
gunfight that left Pierce dead. On March 13 police also arrested
Shelton McDaniels (29) and Jerry Harbin Jr. (29) in connection with
the slaying. Others later arrested included Alex Davis (25), Michael
Stills (21) and Jerry Harbin Jr. (29). On April 14 Julian Ambrose
(16) was also arrested after he was cleared for released from
Highland Hospital.
(SFC, 3/13/15, p.A1)(SFC, 3/17/15, p.A1)
2015 Mar 9, In San Francisco
Kenyatta Butler Jr. (18) of San Leandro and Donzel Gaines of SF were
gunned down as they sat in a car near the Crocker Amazon Playground.
On March 26 Davante Robinson (21) and Gregory Morton III were booked
on suspicion of murder.
(SFC, 4/1/15, p.D3)
2015 Mar 9, Apple Corp. CEO Tim
Cook presented the company’s new smartwatch at a show in San
Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. Prices for the
watch started at $349.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.D1)
2015 Mar 9, In Georgia, police
Officer Robert Olsen shot and killed Anthony Hill, a naked and
unarmed black man, at an apartment complex in Chamblee. In October a
grand jury recommended further investigation in the case. On Jan 21,
2016, a grand jury indicted Olsen on charges including felony
murder.
(SFC, 3/11/15, p.A6)(SFC, 10/30/15, p.A6)(SFC,
1/22/16, p.A7)
2015 Mar 9, Univ. of Oklahoma
Pres. David Boren severed the school’s ties with national fraternity
Sigma Alpha Epsilon and ordered its on campus house to be shuttered
after several members took part in a racist chant caught in an
online video. Two students were expelled the following day.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)(SFC, 3/11/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar 9, Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker signed into law a measure that prohibits requiring a
worker to pay union dues.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 9, The Solar Impulse 2
aircraft set off from Abu Dhabi on a bid to make the first
round-the-world tour. Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg (63) will trade
flying the Si2 with Bertrand Piccard. The epic journey was scheduled
to spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25
days.
(AFP, 3/9/15)(SFC, 3/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 9, In northwest
Argentina two helicopters carrying passengers filming a popular
European reality show crashed in a remote area, killing 8 French
citizens and two Argentine pilots.
(AP, 3/10/15)
2015 Mar 9, Bangladesh said it
has ordered North Korean diplomat Son Young Nam to leave the country
after he tried to smuggle in gold bullion using diplomatic immunity.
North Korea apologized to Bangladesh over the incident.
(AFP, 3/9/15)(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 9, Britain said it has
sold another 1.0 percent in state-rescued Lloyds Banking Group for
Â£500 million ($754 million, 694 million euros), matching last
month's sale.
(AFP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, About 10 Chadian
soldiers died in fighting to free two towns in northern Nigeria
previously held by Boko Haram. A Niger military source said about
300 Boko Haram militants had been killed. About 30 Nigerien and
Chadian soldiers were wounded in clashes over Malam Fatouri and
Damasak.
(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Beijing police said
five women activists have been criminally detained for planning to
put up anti-sexual harassment posters in three Chinese cities.
(AP, 3/13/15)
2015 Mar 9, The European
Central Bank confirmed a 1.1 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) stimulus
program by starting to buy government bonds.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Egypt temporarily
opened a crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing students, patients
seeking medical care and dual nationals to leave the territory for
the first time in nearly two months.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, In Egypt a roadside
bomb killed 3 soldiers in the Sinai peninsula.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, French police
detained five Greenpeace activists after they dangled from a bridge
in Paris and unfurled banners on the Seine River that call for cuts
in nuclear power.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, In Greece a panel
of judges decided that 64 Greek and German nationals should stand
trial for bribery or money laundering over an alleged bribery
scandal 17 years ago, involving a telecom contract for German
industrial giant Siemens AG.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, In northern Iraq
Kurdish forces drove Islamic State militants back from the oil-rich
city of Kirkuk, in an attack which was backed by heavy air strikes
from a US-led coalition.
(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Palestinian
security forces in the West Bank arrested dozens of members of the
Islamist movement Hamas.
(AFP, 3/10/15)
2015 Mar 9, The Philippine
military said its forces have killed 73 hard-line Muslim rebels and
a suspected foreign militant in a three-week offensive in the
restive south. 6 soldiers were reported killed and 29 others wounded
in the assaults that started Feb 25.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Russian President
Vladimir Putin bestowed the state Order of Honor on Ramzan Kadyrov,
the leader of Chechnya.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Russian President
Vladimir Putin awarded a state honor to Andrei Lugovoy, a man
suspected by Britain of using radioactive polonium to poison Kremlin
critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
(Reuters, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, Swedish Foreign
Minister Margot Wallstroem accused Saudi Arabia of blocking her
speech at an Arab League meeting due to her stance on human rights
in the region.
(AFP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, About 95 captives,
including Kurdish fighters, escaped from an Islamic State-run prison
in northern Syria but most were recaptured.
(Reuters, 3/10/15)
2015 Mar 9, Saudi Arabia
beheaded a Filipino convicted of murdering his boss, bringing to 40
the number of executions this year. Joven Esteva was found guilty of
stabbing the Saudi in the chest in 2007.
(AFP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, In southern Yemen
Al-Qaida militants overran and held the city of Mahfad for hours
before an army counterattack pushed them out. Saudi Arabia agreed to
host a peace talks with the Houthis requested by Pres. Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 9, In Zimbabwe Itai
Dzamara was forcibly taken by five unidentified men and bundled into
an unmarked truck near his home in the capital Harare. The
journalist-turned activist had been staging sit-ins in the capital
demanding that President Robert Mugabe resign.
(Reuters, 3/11/15)

2016 Mar 9, In New Mexico
convicted murderer Joseph Cruz (32) and Lionel Clah (29), convicted
of armed robbery, escaped from a prisoner transport van in the
Roswell area. Cruz was re-captured in Albuquerque on March 11. Clah
was re-captured on March 12, also in Albuquerque.
(SFC, 3/10/16, p.A6)(SSFC, 3/113/16, p.A9)
2016 Mar 9, In Pennsylvania an
ambush-style shooting at a backyard barbecue in the Pittsburgh
suburb of Wilkinsburg killed 5 people and an 8-month old fetus. Two
gunmen working as a team remained on the run.
(AFP, 3/10/16)(SFC, 3/10/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 9, In Texas Coy
Wesbrook was executed for killing 5 people, including his ex-wife,
in a 1997 shooting rampage.
(SFC, 3/10/16, p.A5)
2016 Mar 9, In Afghanistan the
Taliban attacked a police headquarters and an intelligence agency
office early today in southern Helmand province. At least 3 police
officers were killed along with 7 attackers.
(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Five Afghans,
including two children and a six-month old baby, drowned late today
in the Aegean trying to reach Greece as Turkey starts to implement
an EU agreement to curb illegal migration.
(Reuters, 3/10/16)
2016 Mar 9, The Bangladesh
central bank said it is working to recover some $100 million
allegedly stolen by Chinese hackers from an account at the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York. The money was apparently transferred to
accounts in the Philippines. At least 30 transfer requests were made
Feb. 5 using the Bangladesh Bank's SWIFT code, out of which five
succeeded in effecting transfers. North Korea was later implicated
in the cyber theft. In 2017 a report by Kaspersky Lab, “Lazarus
Under the Hood," said North Korean hackers hit not only Bangladesh
but also targeted dozens of banks worldwide in a susteained attempt
at global digital robbery.
(AP, 3/9/16)(SFC, 5/31/16, p.D2)(SFC, 4/7/17,
p.A4)
2016 Mar 9, In Brazil
prosecutors filed charges against former Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva connected to claims of money laundering and misrepresentation
of assets.
(SFC, 3/10/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 9, Thousands of
British doctors began a 48-hour strike in an acrimonious dispute
over a new contract.
(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Croatia and
Slovenia, two of the countries along the route used by hundreds of
thousands of people in recent months, barred entry to transiting
migrants from midnight. Serbia indicated it would follow suit.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, French students and
trade unions staged protest marches across the country against
far-reaching labor reforms.
(Reuters, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, The Indian arm of
global consumer giant Unilever said it has reached a settlement with
hundreds of former employees 15 years after its thermometer plant in
southern India was shut following accusations of mercury
contamination.
(AP, 3/10/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Ingushetia nine
people, including five journalists, were driving to Grozny on a
press trip organized by the Committee to Prevent Torture, when
masked assailants stormed their minibus and later torched it with
their belongings inside. Journalists from Norway and Sweden, a
lawyer for the NGO and the minibus driver were hospitalized with
injuries. Hours later armed men raided the office of the Committee
to Prevent Torture in Karabulak.
(AFP, 3/10/16)
2016 Mar 9, Iran fired two more
long-range ballistic missiles as it continued military tests in
defiance of US sanctions and fresh warnings from Washington.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Iraq a large
number of rockets were fired on Taza from the nearby village of
Bashir, which is held by the jihadists. The suspected mustard gas
attack on Taza left Fatima Samir (3) dead.
(AFP, 3/12/16)
2016 Mar 9, A Japanese court
issued an unprecedented order for a nuclear reactor near Kyoto to
stop operating and ordered a second one to stay offline.
(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Kiribati opposition
candidate Taaneti Mamau won the presidential election.
(Econ, 3/12/16, p.38)
2016 Mar 9, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un said the country has miniaturized nuclear warheads to
mount on ballistic missiles and ordered improvements in the power
and precision of its arsenal.
(Reuters, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Two Palestinians
opened fire on a bus and near Jerusalem's Old City, seriously
wounding one person.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Poland's
Constitutional Tribunal ruled that new rules introduced by the new
government to regulate how the court functions are unconstitutional.
(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Portugal Marcelo
Rebelo de Sousa, the new center-right president, took office,
telling the Socialist government to stick to the budget rigor
demanded by Brussels to avoid a return to economic crisis.
(Reuters, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, The Saudi
Arabia-led military coalition intervening in Yemen said Huthi rebels
have agreed to a prisoner swap and an apparent truce along the
border following unprecedented talks with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia
released seven Yemenis in exchange for Cpl. Jaber al-Kaabi.
(AFP, 3/9/16)(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Somalia US
troops took part in an overnight helicopter-borne special forces
raid against Shebab insurgents, killing more than 10 Islamic
extremists in Awdhegle town. At least three police officers died
when a car bomb exploded outside a tea shop in Mogadishu.
(AFP, 3/9/16)(SFC, 3/10/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 9, In South Korea a
Google-developed supercomputer stunned South Korean Go grandmaster
Lee Se-Dol by taking the first game of a five-match showdown between
man and machine in Seoul.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Tunisia 2
"terrorists" and a soldier were killed in a firefight in the Oued
Rbyaa area. The confrontation came after jihadists on the run raided
a building site in search of provisions and stole food from workers
there.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, The Turkish
military carried out air strikes against Kurdish rebel targets
across the border in northern Iraq, killing at least 67 militants.
(AP, 3/12/16)
2016 Mar 9, Turkey ended its
3-month military operation against militants in mainly Kurdish city
of Diyarbakir.
(AP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Turkey's coastguard
intercepted dozens of mostly Syrian migrants in coves along the
Aegean coast as they continued to attempt perilous sea crossings to
Greece despite Ankara's efforts to stem the flow under a deal with
the European Union.
(Reuters, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, Ukrainian military
pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who is on trial over the killing of two
Russian journalists during the Ukraine conflict, vowed to press on
with a hunger strike without water unless Russia releases her.
(AFP, 3/9/16)
2016 Mar 9, In Zimbabwe
hundreds rallied in Harare over the shadowy disappearance of an
opposition activist a year ago. Itai Dzamara, a former journalist
and harsh regime critic, was seized by unidentified men on March 9,
2015.
(AFP, 3/9/16)

2017 Mar 9, US Homeland
Security Secretary John Kelly said Illegal border crossings declined
40 percent from January to February, crediting executive actions by
President Trump for the reduction.
(CSM, 3/9/17
2017 Mar 9, Wikileaks said it
will turn over all the details it has on the CIA’s alleged hacking
arsenal so that tech companies can patch holes and fix
vulnerabilities in their technology before the activist group makes
the code publicly available online.
(SFC, 3/10/17, p.C1)
2017 Mar 9, Former New Jersey
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Arnoldo Echevarria was
convicted of accepting cash bribes and sex from immigrants in
exchange for employment authorization documents.
(SFC, 3/11/17, p.A6)
2017 Mar 9, Scientists said
they have developed a vaccine to shield endangered chimpanzees and
gorillas against Ebola, which has wiped out tens of thousands of the
wild apes in three decades.
(AFP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Belarus Pres.
Alexander Lukashenko suspended collection of a fee from the
unemployed which had sparked an unusual wave of protests throughout
the authoritarian country.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, European Union
leaders confirmed Donald Tusk for a second term as council
president, overcoming weeks of strong opposition from his native
Poland.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, The Ile de France
region passed a new rule obliging laborers on public building sites
to use French, copying action taken elsewhere in France to squeeze
out foreign workers.
(AP, 3/10/17)
2017 Mar 9, In Germany an
axe-wielding attacker, Fatmir H. (37), wounded nine people in a
bloody rampage at a railway station. The Kosovan national had been
diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of high anxiety
and self-harm. In September he was committed to a psychiatric ward.
(AFP, 3/10/17)(AFP, 9/22/17)
2017 Mar 9, In Germany Marcel
Hesse (19) gave himself up to police late today in Herne. He
admitted to killing a child (9) and a 22-year-old acquaintance,
citing frustration over a rejected bid to join the German army and
the recent loss of his internet connection. Hesse had stabbed the
boy 52 times with a folding knife and allegedly boasted about the
murder in a video clip he published on the darknet.
(AP, 3/10/17)(AP, 9/8/17)
2017 Mar 9, Guam lawmakers
unanimously passed the measure raising the legal age to use or
purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 stating Jan. 1, 2018. Within
weeks the measure lapsed into law after the governor took no action.
(AP, 3/24/17)
2017 Mar 9, In Italy an
overpass collapsed onto the A14, the main Adriatic coast highway,
crushing a car and reportedly killing two people inside.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Mexican authorities
said three police investigators have been found dead after being
abducted in the municipality of Maltrata, Veracruz state, a region
plagued by drug violence.
(AFP, 3/10/17)
2017 Mar 9, Moldova's
parliament accused Russia's intelligence service of intimidating
politicians, following an investigation into alleged money
laundering by Russian officials.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, North Korea
guaranteed the safety of Malaysians banned from leaving the country,
as two Malaysian UN employees left the isolated state in a possible
sign that diplomatic tensions had begun to settle. Nine other
Malaysians were believed to still be stuck there after the two
countries' diplomatic relations broke down over the Feb 13 killing
in Malaysia of the estranged sibling of North Korea's leader.
(Reuters, 3/9/17)(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Pakistan shut its
porous border with landlocked Afghanistan after opening it for two
days, saying the measure was necessary to save Pakistanis from
attacks from militants operating inside Afghanistan.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte pleaded for help from mayors in Muslim
parts of the south to deal with Islamist militants, and threatened
to impose martial law there if the problem is not tackled.
(Reuters, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Top Puerto Rico
legislators said they will provide some financial relief to
islanders who invested in government bonds and face deep losses amid
an economic crisis and ongoing defaults.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, It was reported
that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has dismissed 10 senior law
enforcement officers.
(AP, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Spain's National
Court found German Cardona Soler (46), dubbed the "mini-Madoff" in
reference to jailed US conman Bernard L. Madoff, guilty of fraud,
money laundering, document falsification and criminal association.
Soler was sentenced to more than 13 years in jail for running a
pyramid scheme that swindled 350 million euros ($372 million) from
over 180,000 investors in Europe, the United States and Latin
America.
(AFP, 3/10/17)
2017 Mar 9, In Syria air
strikes, believed to belong to the US-led coalition against the
Islamic State militants, killed 23 civilians, including eight
children, in countryside around the northern city of Raqqa.
(Reuters, 3/9/17)
2017 Mar 9, Thai transport
officials said that services using private vehicles to transport
passengers, such as Uber or Southeast Asia's GrabCar, are illegal
because the vehicles aren't registered for public transport. The
government said it plans to introduce its own cellphone app, TAXI
OK, for passengers to call government-endorsed taxis featuring GPS
tracking systems and closed-circuit cameras
(AP, 3/9/17)